


On Wings of Awareness

by Skeren



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Study, Drowning, Founding of Konoha, In a manner of speaking, Making up History as We Go, Minor Character Death, Reincarnating into a character, Self-Insert, Warring States Period (Naruto)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2019-11-06 16:56:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 11,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17943575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeren/pseuds/Skeren
Summary: There is a fine line between speculation and fact. There is an even finer line between reality and stories.Reality and fact both work on the basis of the provable, theconcrete, thetouchable.Stories and speculation are nebulous, driven by imagination and what-ifs, the emotions.Reality is not supposed to be a story, and it's most certainly not supposed to place someone in the position of being reborn from one to the other. It's not supposed to force someone to have to figure out in life or death situations how to tell speculation from fact.It's not supposed to do many things, but clearly, the universe is uninterested insupposed to.





	1. End Credits

There are a lot of stories out there. Those stories traverse both time and culture, and sometimes are consistent from universe to universe. Other times, a story is wholly unique and is only ever told once, in whispers that no one would think to write down, and thus, is lost. Sometimes these stories are so well worn that they’ve been told over and over in many ways, have been weathered down until you could ask anyone and they’d know something of the basics of it, a name, a plot point, a _facet_.

Which... probably brings us to the point of this little meander, doesn’t it? 

There are a lot of stories, and not all of them are told. Not all of them are even started, let alone finished, and most certainly not all of them are _remembered_. 

My story is somehow a mix of these elements.

Mine is one that was never properly started because I was constantly saying I’d get around to it, that I had more than enough time for my plans even as I soared past thirty and continued to put them off. Mine is one that isn’t remembered because no one where I am now will ever _ever_ be told and it’s the best for all concerned that it stays that way. 

Mine is one that is, also, perhaps never to be finished, and happens to be one of those with worn edges and a plot point that everyone _knows_ because it is so timeless, so used, that it will always re-emerge. In my case, it is in the plot point of someone being put in a world not their own in some fashion, and in my case, it was to be reborn into a story I had once adored. Yes, I was definitely my own character in my own unique story once, as much as anyone ever is. I was a person who obscurely mused about the concepts of reincarnation and believed the theory of universes being side by side, of _stories_ just being other realities leaking through as I wrote story after story and somehow never noticed my _own_.

I had plans, ones which somehow never quite managed to go anywhere at all. I don’t know if I was the main character or a side character, but I know that once I believed that I was in reality when staring at a computer screen and looking after my family in a house I rarely bothered to leave. And then one day, that changed. I took my car with its rather terrible tires out on the road on a particularly cold winter day and didn’t account for the ice that had sprung up overnight because of the rain. I was unworried, navigating the ridiculous hills of my home... and then nothing. That’s the last thing I remember from that life. 

I don’t remember dying. I don’t remember swerving on the road or skidding. I don’t know if I fell asleep or caved in to some ridiculous what if that lived in the back of my mind wondering what driving off a cliff was like. I just know that that life ended without much of a fuss and I was in my car on an icy road when it happened. 

But then, just as I don’t remember dying, I also don’t remember being born. 

My first memories of my second life are those being a toddler, potty training, and my realization that I happened to, somehow, have acquired a penis and shrunk mightily between one breath and the next. The results of this combination are about what one would expect, though I am relieved to say that I was too confused at first to _panic_ and thus did not scream or any similar nonsense.

I do not feel, however, that I could be blamed for the mess I made as a consequence of the timing in my shift in perception. 

My father, rather unfortunately, did not agree and it was also, _perhaps,_ a very _bad_ thing that the first impression I knew from him was anger. It was an impression that never left me, even as I grew from that toddler into someone older, but then, there are reasons for that. He made a point of making sure that I could never learn to love him. 

That day, he never looked away from my gaze as mother carried me away from my mess so she could take care of it, his icy glare steady and unrelenting even as he fell quiet. He had, I learned later, eyes just like mine, golden brown and able to look so very like a hawk’s when furious. At the time, I just knew that he unnerved me and that somehow, some part of me knew I should recognize this person and remember them.

I didn’t figure out that he was my father until I tuned in on my mother’s soft murmuring over an hour later, telling me that my father just wanted me to be smart and strong, that he didn’t _mean_ to be cruel. That was also when I realized that the woman carrying my unresisting and oh so tiny form was my mother, one who apparently loved me and wanted me to know it.

It took longer before I realized that there was more to the reincarnation business than even that, but then, given the era I was born into, how could I suspect?

It’s not like there was a Konoha, not then. Konoha was still staggering into a thought on a battlefield that day. 

No, my first clue as to what truly happened wasn’t like so many stories. Nothing was just _handed_ to me by way of a hitai-ate, a mountain, or even a symbol at all. 

My first clue was my name, not spoken once for _weeks_ when anyone spoke to me at all during that nebulous first month because father believed that children as young as I should be seen and not heard. Mother was often so very busy off doing whatever it was she did when not sitting with me which meant I didn’t hear it from her either. That she called me her baby or her child rather than my _name_ didn’t speed the process. 

Still, it was _my_ name, my only one at that because somehow, everything of the name I knew before, regardless of how proud I remember being of it in my last life, well, that was gone. I remember it had to do with leadership, something akin to princess that had to do with elves? I really have no idea. I’m impressed I retain even as much as I do from that life where names are concerned, to be truthful. I had a tendency to forget those sort of details, in that life. 

Then again, I never truly _tried_ in that life. Compared to _this_ life I accomplished so _little_. 

But then, that’s the point of this story, isn’t it? All my journal writing coming to a purpose that will only ever be seen by the shinigami themselves if they decide to let me be when I finally move on _properly_. 

However, we’re not at the end, are we?

No, we’re at the beginning.

So we’ll begin at that beginning, after I died, after I woke, and say that it begins when I learned my name.

This will be the story of Shimura Danzo, for that is who I am, and who I do not regret having become.


	2. Month One

For the first month of my new life, I didn’t talk. I could have, and honestly, if I had been a bit less shell shocked I probably _would_ have. 

I’d always been a talker. 

Unfortunately, if it even _was_ unfortunate at the time, the transition from old to young, big to small, female to male... all of it was a bit much. Going from firmly in control of my life to, well, _helpless_ wasn’t exactly wonderful either, but nothing I hadn’t experienced before in some capacity. The rest was a bit more out there.

I didn’t cry.

During that month I watched, I listened, I essentially _lurked_. I’d always been good at that, lurking. It was one of my two settings really, loud or watchful, attention-catching or fading into the woodwork. It was one of the things my first father taught me by example and something I had always been grateful for. In this new life, I would take those passive lessons in how to fly under the radar, how to _convince_ people of things... and I’d finally use them to their fullest potential instead of stifling myself so I didn’t draw attention. It was a decision I made during that first month of watching, of _realizing_.

What I realized, after all, was fairly straightforward as few things in my life ever had been. The place I was in now was one that prized those skills just as in my old life they were something to play down. That was more than obvious inside the first week, when I saw as many blades as books, and heard as many stories about cunning tricksters as strong front line warriors. 

In that first month, I learned. I couldn’t read, not whatever language it was I spoke now, and that would be a hurdle I had to overcome, but I could listen, and I could look at pictures and try to remember that way. I had time, of a sort, a cushion to adjust because I was so _young_ and the young were ridiculously changeable. 

I started to adjust. I started to get comfortable that this was me now, that the memories of _before_ might fade in time. For all I knew, every child experienced this sort of thing, remembering their last life for a time like a tenacious nightmare. Certainly, I was sad at what I lost, that the easy comforts and unfinished projects of my last life were now out of reach, but I didn’t truly grieve. 

I regret to say that while I enjoyed the company of my family, I only remember ever feeling fiercely powerful love for one person, and that person had been taken from me _long_ before I changed to my new life. But smaller loves, quieter affections... those I was sad for, and I allowed that sadness to still my tongue as I learned this new place, exploring my boundaries with diligent care.

I was never put in a playpen. Blades were kept above my reach, but not out of climbing distance, and doors were kept closed but had no particular protections to keep them that way if I were truly _determined_.

When I looked in the mirror, the face that is now mine wasn’t one I had any recollection of, but the eyes were familiar, from two places oddly enough. One, from my father, the man who screamed me into this world instead of me screaming into theirs. And two... from a boy I knew, long long ago when I was a child the first time, and who I had always believed had the prettiest eyes in the world. That I now had eyes like that amused me, the first amusement I felt in this place that was _mine_.

Which had been annoying to learn to navigate and I had yet to find a way to turn off. 

For you see, I am a sensor. A strong one even, just... specialized.

In my last life, I had something akin to the ability, an uncanny awareness of when people around me were hurt and the ability to pinpoint it even when I could not see them. I know it was uncanny because I truly frightened someone with a guess, once, before I learned not to talk about it. Here... Here it was different. It wasn’t turned outward any longer, no longer reaching beyond me for the status of those around me. Instead, it was turned inward, staggeringly strong, and I was wretchedly grateful that it only kicked in when someone touched me. I couldn’t imagine being overwhelmed by the feelings of others just by being in the same room, or worse, further away. 

I’m embarrassed to say that it took nearly two weeks for me to understand it was even happening. I am, after all, but a small child, and in light of that, I just _presumed_ that the happy relief I felt every time my new mother came to pick me up was _mine_. After all, why would my mother have any cause to be _relieved_ to see me hale and whole _every single day_? I, on the other hand, had plenty of cause. A respite from boredom, a new distraction, on and on... until one day, I found something interesting to play with, puzzles that engaged my mind for the first time since I came to this place, and I was _irritated_ when I was plucked away. At least, I was right up until my mother hugged me close, and then they were there again, smothering my own feelings in a tidal wave of overwhelming affection before I could even presume to voice my displeasure.

After that, I was a lot less excited to see her when she’d come to fetch me because all the things I learned in my last life, while useful for what I dealt with _there_ , seemed to do absolutely _nothing_ in the face of _this_. I didn’t want to lose myself. It was the one thing I’d always had, regardless of hardships, regardless of anything. I was always irrevocably _me_.

Thus, I had to learn a new way, and figure out how to tell the emotions of others from my own if I could not keep them _out_. What was worse is that I _could_ reach out to those close around me, to know who they were without looking or even really _trying_ , but the emotional aspect only ever came with touch, and that was the part I did not want. If it had all been just identifying, that I could have comfortably lived with. 

Because of this, I embarked on the process of self-control I never _had_ mastered in my first life, knowing that if I didn’t have it, I certainly wasn’t about to get it from anyone _else_. 

As for the name thing? That came at the end of my grace period, just days shy of a full four weeks at the end of a month, when someone made the mistake of talking about a festival just outside the one window I could reach if I adjusted the chair just right to get onto the table. I liked festivals. Festivals said _so much_ about local customs and I wanted to _know_ things. I’d started to accept that this was my life now, that this was going to be me from now on... but I didn’t _know_ anything. 

I used to read all day every day and now I couldn’t understand a word and I was, frankly, going out of my mind. 

Thus, I’d climbed the chair, scaled the table, and nearly went out the open window in an effort to get a better listen. 

And in the process, I learned my name, as it was part of a very long, very unhappy lecture from my mother who never once raised her voice, even after snatching me before I could tip headfirst from a height much too tall for my tiny body. Instead, I just felt _terrible_ , because I had obviously scared her, and she clearly loved me, and apparently, the people below had, perhaps, not been anyone that she was willing to let know I _existed_.

In all, it was a good hard shake to all the perceptions I had slowly built up about the world around me... and also made me all the more determined to learn to read. After all, if a person named Shimura Danzo really existed, was _me_ then... that meant chakra, that meant _seals_ , and that meant bending reality in ways that I’d never _quite_ had enough belief in back Before to do anything substantial with.

I wanted it. I wanted... to not be the me I was. I wanted to be a better me I _could_ be if that name meant the same things here as it had in a story, once. A story that contradicted itself and seemingly didn’t know where it was going, but a story that had the equivalent of magic made into a science of sorts, and where people could do impossible things.

Problem was... I didn’t _know_ , and that was why knowing my name was just a clue, a puzzle piece, instead of a whole picture.

It was, unfortunately, the start of a great deal of waiting.


	3. The First Move

The first time I saw a seal it was like the world had just opened up for me and anything was suddenly possible. 

I didn’t know how it worked, I didn’t know what the lines meant, but it felt like _home_. Watching mother pack away our things into a seal from the room I’d stayed alone in more often than not for the last few months was a revelation... and a relief. It really was a world like that place of fantasy, I’d finally gotten my _proof_.

I wasn’t born mad, thinking I’d come from somewhere that didn’t exist and have dreams bigger than my whole soul.

Until the day mother brought out her storage seals, I honestly hadn’t thought about the composition of my room very much. I was rarely let out into other parts of the building, and this room was, admittedly, somewhat bare. I had a few toys, puzzles that couldn’t keep my attention mostly, and I’d gotten into the chest that sat against one wall more than once, and had been hauled away from it just as many times.

On reflection, I realize that that chest was where she pulled these seals _from_. 

It made me wonder if she was the one who made them, and it was with complete shamelessness that I trailed her from point to the point in the room, watching what she did with avid intensity. Her hands, unlike the rest of her, were elegant. She moved with a kind of quiet certainty around the seals that said they were familiar, and it was part of why I watched her.

It was a little like watching my father in my last life, perpetually with art supplies in hand that made ever more detailed pictures that I’d never quite figured out how to replicate the look of. I’d had to find my own way to do art because he’d never been very good at teaching me to do things the way he did. I hoped my new mother wouldn’t be like that if she knew seals as well as I suddenly suspected.

Of course she saw me watching her. 

Her eyes, unlike my father’s, were dark, almost the polished onyx so common to citizens of Fire, in fact, and she smiled at me after packing away the bedding in the room, already moving on to the next item. “You’re probably curious, aren’t you? I’m not surprised, we haven’t moved in so long you probably don’t even realize that this isn’t a clan home.”

Given I hadn’t spoken in the time I’d been here, she obviously didn’t expect any verbal answer, but I still came to cling to her skirt, for once _wanting_ to be able to read her better, to understand if this situation was good or bad because my child brain was having trouble reading nuance. She thankfully obliged me, and she seemed... relieved and worried both, but not afraid. Not being afraid was _good_ , I’m fairly sure. 

Tucking me carefully on one hip as she wielded a scroll with the other, she moved on to the last pieces of furniture in the space, one now barren compared to just a half hour before. “See, we Shimura, we have this policy, as a clan, and unlike most clans we have to be careful not to interfere with each other.” She set the scroll on the table and it vanished in a small flare of light even as she continued speaking. “We notice things, and listen, which is why I’ve been so so proud of you. You’ve been listening, and watching, like a good little Shimura.” 

Her smile was as brilliant as the sun, and in such close proximity, there was no missing her pride in me. Apparently, my silence had been a _boon_. Not knowing what else to do, I just patted her chest, which was enough, given her smile just deepened... and I suddenly wondered if she could read me as well as I could read _her_.

If she could, me wondering about it clearly wasn’t enough to keep her from letting me guess because she didn’t put me _down_. “Didn’t think I noticed, did you, sweetheart? You’ve been different lately, more aware of things, but that’s alright, we won’t tell your father. He’ll try to put you to work sooner and I don’t think _either_ of us wants that for you. I hope you’re at least nine before he gets his claws into you to use you for favors. His contacts are... not kind. He’s not one of the Shimura who was lucky with who they lined up with like that.”

When the chest in the corner was the only item left, she gently set me back on my feet, her scroll set with the others as she knelt and gathered my far too tiny hands in her bigger ones. “You must _try_ to act like a normal little boy when we get where we’re going after this sweetheart. I can’t keep you safe if your father realizes how sharp you are, understand? You were talking a little, until recently, and I don’t know why you stopped, but if you never misbehave, your father will start to _notice_. He’ll have much more time to once we’re back with the other Shimura.”

I have no idea what my face must have looked like, but even with her worry and sincerity overlaying my feelings my own alarm was creeping through. That was hardly a _good_ sign. I’d never been a normal child before, not in my first life, and doing it _now_ wasn’t exactly going to work very well either. 

“It’s alright. I’ve been careful to make sure he didn’t see, and he’s been so busy with his secrets, the part of the trust that he holds for the clan, that he hasn’t figured you out yet baby.” She released my hands from her hold for a moment, transferring them both to easily fit into one of hers. She petted my hair with the other even as she talked about things that someone my actual physical age would have had no hope of understanding, and really only made me want to freak out _more_ because I _did_. She was painting my father as a monstrous picture and I wasn’t much liking what that would mean. “But he’s not going to be the only one with eyes on you in a week when we get back to everyone else. The clan head will want to look at you at some point, and the other family members are all just as observant as you are.”

This, of course, was what finally broke my months of silence, and my lips parted to let me experience my own voice for the first time. It wasn’t a _happy_ occasion. _”No.”_

Her smile was just sad in turn. “Yes. Be strong, okay baby? All Shimura are strong. We hold the secrets of the world and we’re loyal to the bitter end, you remember that.” Leaning forward, she kissed my forehead, as though she hadn’t just laid the foundations of my entire life with just a few words. “You’ll find your loyalty eventually, and you’ll have your people, and they’ll trust you and you them. Until then, you have me, understand?”

When she eased back from the maternal gesture, one I honestly couldn’t remember receiving before, not from anyone who wasn’t her, I just gave her a wobbly frown, feeling my eyes tearing up. I nodded instead of speaking though, suddenly desperately wanting to go back an hour and just not draw her attention at all. It might be better to know these things, but I would rather have simply _not_.

She sighed at my reaction and used her thumb to brush away the first of my tears. “And you’ll learn to hide these too. But not yet. For today, you just come here.”

I sniffled when she drew me in, and I took the opportunity to just hide my face. Some of my theories I’d liked to have been _wrong_ about if this was a life I was actually going to live. I just hoped I was at least remotely inside the primary timeline because some of the alternate paths I’d created... I didn’t even know what I’d do with myself if I was in one of those. The ones where Konoha didn’t happen until Danzo was _grown_ that I thought I’d made up. It was a lot more frightening to be Danzo with that kind of uncertainty. 

I’d never been accused of being a kind author.

But I’d be fine. I was a survivor before, and I’d be a survivor now. If it came down to a worst case scenario... I’d learn, I’d grow, and I’d make certain that I didn’t fall. 

Damn the rest.


	4. First Impressions

The first thing I really noticed about the Shimura clan was their coloration.

It wasn’t, mind, because the Shimura were vibrant and stood out against their surroundings. There was no blue or pink hair. There wasn’t even _blond_. No, my first overwhelming impression of the Shimura was _camouflage_. Medium brown to black hair was the standard, and my panning eyes didn’t pick out a single eye color that wasn’t some degree of onyx or honey. There was no hazel in this crowd. There were no jewel tones. The attire was much the same, muted colors, downplayed decorations, simple but elegant enough styles to not really draw the eye either way. 

This was a group of people who didn’t want to be _seen_. I knew from my mother’s stories that she’d married into this family but she fit right in. She fit in better than _I_ did, which was actually rather worrying. Yes, I had the same sort of lightly tanned skin tone as most of the people I saw, this wasn’t in contention. However, I noticed one thing that was different between me and them. No, it wasn’t my eyes, though mine were lighter than most of those around me. The difference was actually something I had no hope of having control over. I was a _pretty_ child. None of the people I saw were _ugly_ , but there was a certain kind of... deliberate plainness to them. There were a few that stood out, people who wouldn’t have to try hard at all to be beautiful, but they were not the norm. No, in this crowd they were like _beacons_. 

This was no Uchiha clan where one in every pair of children was magnificent. This wasn’t even the Senju where there was something exotic about each and every one. In fact, I couldn’t think of a single clan in the stories I remembered who seemed to so firmly encompass the _unexceptional_ in appearance as the people my mother was carrying me past, making her way ever deeper to take us to the place that we were now apparently going to be living in. 

It was actually quite frightening. 

In my last life, I’d been vain. Not the kind of vain that led to hours in front of a mirror, but the kind that said ‘look at me, aren’t I wonderful?’ without much effort. It was the kind of quiet vanity that was more confidence than care, and I constantly flouted social expectations with bright colors and a flagrantly _different_ approach to style that had caused me more trouble than it hadn’t in my younger years. 

But here? No, among these people I would never seek out color. I knew how to fade into the background and by all things holy I would _do so_. These people didn’t make me feel safe, and there was a wariness in my mother I hadn’t truly expected given that, supposedly, we’d come home. Home was supposed to be _safe_ , though I knew through unfortunate experience that that wasn’t always so. Regardless, it was supposed to at least _feel_ like it and this... didn’t.

This place didn’t say home. 

It wasn’t until we were away from all the curious eyes that I pinned down part of why, my child’s mind turning more slowly than I cared for in regards to this particular puzzle. 

We hadn’t been greeted. No close family members of my father had said a word to us as we wove through the buildings and streets of the clan grounds. No one smiled at my mother in recognition. It had been... cold. Evaluating. Even the children had been muted, playing quiet games and staying mostly out of view as we went by or scampering away entirely after they’d gotten a good eyeful on us. Their eyes, unlike those of the adults, had rested more firmly on me, and I honestly wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. 

A lot of things about this entrance into supposed _family_ didn’t strike me as a good thing. Father had walked ahead of us, leading mother and me along to our house, but there hadn’t been any tension in him. There was nothing in his shoulders that said that what happened when they got here was _weird_ , and even if I’d wanted to ask... he hardly gave me a chance, sweeping off and leaving me alone in the house with mother the moment he was sure we wouldn’t get lost. 

It was unnerving enough to drive me to ask my mother questions instead, and I honestly had no idea if she was glad or not given that when I started speaking she _startled_.

“Nobody was happy out there.”

Still, startled or not, she hugged me harder and didn’t pretend she didn’t understand, even as she started to walk through the small three bedroom house. There were already things there, furniture, supplies, a desk, but nothing for a child my age, or any child at all. Clearly, I’d been born away from here. “That’s true baby. The Shimura have a lot of ways that mean that openly being happy doesn’t work very well for them.”

”And nobody said hi either.” Somehow, this was more distressing than the strange quietude that had lingered out in the open sunshine, and the smile I got back was _sad_.

“And nobody will until they know where we stand. Every Shimura family has their own contacts, their own secrets and deals, and you wouldn’t want to get close to someone you might have to cross blades with in defense of those secrets, would you?” No matter how gently she said it, the words were _deeply_ disquieting. 

I knew it showed on my face too, but there was hardly anything I could _do_ about that. “So they don’t... stick together?”

“We do.” If anything, she seemed _sadder_ , the smile fading from her face. “We put the good of the clan before everything else, weigh our secrets against the benefits of keeping or releasing them. We have to because we’re in the middle of a very delicate web and it’s not safe. We stand alone.”

“Is that important?” I knew my eyes were wide, but I desperately needed to understand my position in this clan, and I wouldn’t know _anything_ if all I did was keep quietly watching. 

She cupped my cheek in one of her hands in response to my question, kissing me on the forehead in a clear bid to soothe my distress. “It’s everything. There are other clans that do what we do, that gather information. One is the Yamanaka, but that clan is _protected_. They have both merchants and shinobi in three other clans keeping them safe from anyone who would move against them for what they know. We Shimura never managed that. All we have is a tentative peace held in keeping secrets for enemies that we can move against one another as we must, for the safety of all of us. It’s why you’ve never been here before too my little one. The Shimura rarely _gather_ , but things have been happening lately that mean it’s safer for us to be together than apart, for now.”

I shuddered in response, then hid my face against her, throwing my focus onto _her_ as hard as I could, wanting to drown out my own anxiety. It was more comfortable if I knew it wasn’t _mine_. “Are people going to try and hurt us?”

“Not if I have anything to say about it. I promise.” 

Which was great and all, but I had no idea how strong my mother _was_. 

Still, I needed the comfort, so I seized it in both hands and clung. There was, really, little else I could _do_.

I was, after all, but a child.


	5. Flower Crowns

It’s three weeks before mother lets me out of her sight. Honestly, I wish it had been longer because in those weeks the attention on me had only grown, and it felt like the only tether keeping me safe from being picked to pieces by my new clan was her presence at my back and her arms carrying me from place to place.

I had not attempted to block out her feelings and presence in my time here, not really, as it had calmed a frantic part of me that kept turning speculations and old observances from _before_ in my head over and over. The part of me that had once written stories set in this world and had been a very cruel god indeed. Cruel, capricious, and _ever_ so fond of taking the path other writers hadn’t considered, usually to the detriment of the characters taking that path in the first place. Not always, just... usually. 

Now, I was at the mercy of being in the place where I could not see what paths were before me and it’s ever so much more worrying from this angle.

Thus, when my father gave me a hard look one morning and demanded I go ‘play outside’ my first thought was a glimmer of panic before anything else and the strong urge to hide under the table. I did not, of course, make the mistake of actually _attempting_ anything of the kind, and with only a single frantic glance to my apologetic looking mother, I turned to go through the door being held open for me rather pointedly.

I’ve never had anything against going outside and the grounds themselves were actually rather pretty as seen from the windows, but being outside on my own also meant being at the mercy of anyone who crossed my path and I had always had two mindsets about such things. Be friendly or be _silent_. Failing either of those meant a temper and I hadn’t had _that_ happen in this world yet, thankfully. My goal was to accomplish the latter, silence, but something told me that this wasn’t going to _work_. Especially given that there was nothing resembling a fence around the house and there was nothing keeping me to a set space. By the same token, there was nothing keeping any other children _away_.

It was, all in all, more frightening than it had any right to be, and when the door closed behind me, it was all I could do to actually make my way down to the overgrown field that served as a communal back yard to three different houses. I could tell I was being watched, as there was an adult lounging on their steps within my eye line, but that was fine. Adults had no interest in _me_ and I was more than content with that situation. They’d keep anyone who wasn’t supposed to be here from running off with me or keeping me from dying if I hurt myself and that was _more_ than enough. 

It was the curiosity of children that had me on edge, for all that I didn’t see any at first, and it took several minutes and a slowly rising interest in the flowers scattered before me to distract me from the worry. In my first life, or perhaps I should rather phrase it as my _last_ life, I had been terribly allergic to grass, so the notion of doing exactly as I was doing now would have been laughable to me. Here, now, I had settled myself in the grass amid a spray of flowers, blossoms in my lap as I, after many years of musing on the topic, finally decided it was high time to figure out the appeal, and the skill, of making flower crowns. 

It was going very, very poorly. 

There is, apparently, some kind of trick to this endeavor that I had never considered because every time I tried to twist or tie the flowers into any semblance of ‘together’ they either broke or I was too clumsy and started to accidentally destroy the flowers themselves. Which was, overall, very distracting, not to mention frustrating, and after I moved to another spot I hadn’t stripped bare of flowers and started again was when my earlier fears reminded me of why they existed. 

There was a shadow over me. 

Looking up was a bit like looking into the sun because of the angle, and I leaned so that I was in their shadow more fully, which only helped in the most marginal of ways. Now they were wreathed in light. Lovely, but ultimately unhelpful. Joy. Regardless, they were clearly far taller than me so they were out of their toddler stages at least, whoever this was.

“What are you tryin’ to do?” The voice was definitely that of a young girl, though irritable, so very irritable. Had I been accidentally wrecking someone’s personal play area?

“Flower crowns.”

The girl crouched, and her dark eyes looked first at the mess of twisted up stems in my hands, then to my face, clearly dubious. That... was fair. “Doesn’t look like a crown to me.”

“...It’s harder than I thought.”

“You’re a baby, of _course_ it’s hard. Stupid.” Then the girl was reaching for my hands, snatching the brutalized flowers from me and eying them critically. 

I didn’t even have an argument for her on that one because, honestly, _I was_. A baby that is. My coordination was improving with practice, and I could walk around without any trouble, but my hands were tiny and fine detail in just about anything eluded me. Even chopsticks were sometimes difficult, and wasn’t that just embarrassing? I’d been able to use them for decades in my previous incarnation. Better to stick with something to keep the girl from getting mean, if I could. “Do you know how?”

“All you’re doin is killing the flowers.” She wiggled the flowers at me, then dropped them to the ground, grabbing my hand instead a moment later and pushing to her feet, thus dragging me with her. “C’mon.”

My eyes widened with understandable alarm. She didn’t seem hostile but she was very _intent_. “M’fine here.”

“You’re sitting here killing flowers. You are _not_!” Her glower down at me was actually kind of impressive and not remotely reassuring. 

I tried a different tactic. Maybe something that would get her in trouble if she didn’t notice? “I’m not wearing shoes.”

Her eyes drifted to look at my feet, then she looked at my face. A moment later I was plucked up like so much baggage, a startled noise of negation pressed out of me as she planted me on her hip and started to walk off with me like this was totally within her rights to do. That she could do so made me panic a little because if she was big enough to do that she was what? Nine? Ten? What does a child that age need with a toddler?!

Her self-satisfaction when I didn’t immediately try to fling myself away from her was more than clear and she smirked at me, starting to make her way out of the field. “See? Not a problem. You’re going to come play with my little sister. _She_ knows not to just kill flowers all over.”

Oh. Well that answered _that_ question. She was abducting a playmate for her sibling. “Imma boy.”

”So?” She, if anything, tightened her grip on me. “You like flowers. You weren’t poking bugs. That’s good enough.” Then she swept off away from my safe little flower field without giving me any further chances to escape. 

And it wasn’t like there was anything I could say about that either, now was there? I did, and I hadn’t been, and now I was apparently going to go make an attempt at making a friend whether I wanted to or not. 

Wonderful.


	6. Sofu-dono

I never actually learned the girl’s name that day. Nor did I the next, or the one after that. In fact, I never learned her name during my time with the clan.

Then again, I didn’t offer my own either. 

In fact, the only personal things that I learned about these children were that they were Shimura, they were _bold_ , and they were, apparently, fascinated with me. I suspect this last had much to do with the fact that I was a boy who didn’t particularly mind being dragged off to play with flowers and let myself be the courtier in games of espionage. I was more than content to observe, to listen, and to learn the rules of the little ‘game’ that the girls introduced me to. 

That childish game had a very real undertone to it. It was a game about keeping secrets and about winning the march on your enemies by knowing what to say and when. It was, interestingly enough, what I became popular for after the first few weeks. The two girls, dubbed Nee-chan and Ame-chan respectively through no choice of my own and apparently while not being even remotely close to being their actual names either, were always determined to control who I met when other children came around, curious about my skill at their beloved game. And it really was one game, ongoing and evolving, though somehow I never moved into an active shinobi role, always a passive player, always an observer and a target. 

At first, I suspected I was put in that role because I was so small. 

It didn’t take me long to learn that no, this was instead because most of the younger children were _absolutely terrible_ at playing the role and the person who played the courtier controlled the flow of the game and determined if it was fun for anyone else. Thus it was that I came to be known in the circle of children I dealt with as Hana-dono and absolutely nothing else. I didn’t actually mind this situation given how I’d met Nee-chan in the first place, though upon listening in on a conversation between some of the adult Shimura I realized that I was apparently going to be known as that among my family for the rest of my days. Well, perhaps family was the wrong word. Among my _clan_. Family, I would assume, actually _knew_ one another’s actual names.

There was a point when Nee-chan had been the oldest child to observe the games I was roped into with the under six crowd, but somehow that was no longer the case. No, in the weeks I’d been present the ages of those observing or participating had _definitely _crept into the double digits consistently. It had both seemed odd and not. Odd because the older children didn’t seem particularly interested in breaking up any fights that sprang up, but not because in the world I came from one didn’t tend to let small children roam off in the first place. If I’d been able to focus a bit better, I might have realized that I should tell my mother about this and that it was something to be alarmed about that the initial separation between the ages was thinning. Unfortunately, no matter how deep my memories of another time and place, I still only had the awareness of a child. I could observe the world all I like, but even I could only see so much at a time while being constantly kidnapped from my yard by children I barely knew.__

__It also didn’t help that I still hadn’t gotten the hang of social norms in the Shinobi Warring Era. I’d spent most of my time in this world in close contact with my mother and with children, so how was I to know what was _standard_?_ _

__I wasn’t._ _

__Which was probably why today had gone as today went._ _

__At first, it had been the normal approach of the game, with my team of kids coming to me for whispered instructions before running off giggling, and the kids on the other side trying to get to me to find out what I was whispering too. Or trying to win over the kids that I’d already told. There was no way anyone on the other side of the game could know who I told what to. Or who I’d picked _this_ time to be my courtiers and who to be my ninja. It changed every time and I made sure not to have favorites that weren’t Ame-chan because Nee-chan smacked _hard_ and once had been more than enough to not want to repeat upsetting her by ignoring her sister. Thus, Ame-chan was always on my side of the game._ _

__Today though, we’d only been at it for maybe a half an hour, and the one with the goal secret was one of the younger boys who was playing guard... and whom the other kids had been ignoring because he’d been more focused on snacking than looking like he was _playing_. Which I admit had been a brilliant tactic for a five-year-old, and one that I had been enjoying the effectiveness of before I was rather abruptly plucked up from the grassy little hill I was presiding over affairs from and my kidnapper started to walk off with me. My very adult kidnapper who I had never actually seen before at that._ _

__I wish I could say that my squeak of alarm had roused the other children to try to rescue me, but all that happened was a wave from some of the older kids, one of whom immediately stole my throne after whispering to the diversion boy. It certainly made me feel replaceable, let’s put it that way. Still, I had no idea who this adult was, and a look at him didn’t clear up the mystery at all. I was hesitant to ask, more than aware of my father’s view on breaking through silence to get answers and unsure if this man was the same, but I didn’t _know_ him._ _

__Thus, I asked what seemed the most prudent. “Where are we going?”_ _

__It wasn’t what I wanted to _know_ most, of course, but I’d already learned that we didn’t ask who people were around here at least. His answer was... ominous. “To see Sofu-dono.”_ _

__It took me a moment to understand that, and when I did I tried not to go pale. The man didn’t _seem_ nervous, but who even knew what that meant for me? “Is he in charge?”_ _

__“He takes care of the affairs of _all_ the Shimura, and he’s been hearing about you. Your father should have taken you to see him already.” The man’s muddy brown eyes lingered on my golden ones, and he tisked softly. “Your parents have been remiss.”_ _

__If I was worried before I was doubly so _now_ , and I did my best to wrestle my anxiety into something manageable. The man holding me was... well, he wasn’t unemotional, but he felt _empty_ against my senses, for the most part, washed out in a way that felt nothing like the mother I’d come to rely on. “They told me to go play.”_ _

__”I’m sure they did.” And he clearly didn’t approve either._ _

__He didn’t say anything more after that, and I didn’t dare ask, even as we swept into the house I’m fairly certain belonged to the clan head, for all that I wasn’t sure how I could _tell_. It was no more or less grand than any others, it wasn’t central or at the fringes, it had no more land. The only way I could articulate the look of it was that it was _settled_ in a way that many of the households seemed not to be. Someone had clearly lived here for a long time and hadn’t left it unattended. That combined with the title I’d been given, well. _ _

__I’d always been a good guesser._ _

__We didn’t pause to knock, though our shoes were left by the door, the man carrying me taking mine before I had a chance to protest and sweeping off deeper into the house. He didn’t linger with me though oddly enough. No, we reached an open room with scrolls lining all the walls and a low desk right in the middle, and he set me on my feet before retreating and closing me into it. It was most likely because of the fierce old man settled on the only pillow in the room, though he’d made no move to shoo the other adult away. No, he was just... watching. He didn’t even speak to me, at first, instead just staring me down in the kind of impersonal silence that felt like a dissection._ _

__When he _did_ speak I rather felt like I’d failed some sort of test. Or passed one I _really_ hadn’t wanted to._ _

__“Come here.” His voice was soft, low and commanding, controlled in a manner that belied his fierce appearance. It was the kind of voice that told people to disobey at their own risk and I made my way over to him immediately._ _

__I didn’t run. I didn’t rush. No, I suspected either of those would be bad, but my control was doing me no favors. I was remembering with sudden vivid clarity my mother’s requests to be careful, to not draw attention to myself. I could only apologize to her for this lapse because those requests were in vain as I had, unfortunately, taken a bit too well to acting remotely near my age. I’d been careless. I wasn’t being careless _now_ which was a whole other problem, but done was done. There was no undoing it now, and no point in regretting my mistake. I’d just have to deal with anything that came of this._ _

__When I was close enough my wrist was grabbed and I was pulled close, the man’s other hand catching my chin so he could study my face more easily. He wasn’t hurting me, but it was unnerving all the same because it was so clear it would be terribly easy for him to do so. I neither flinched nor tried to pull away, and there was a glimmer of satisfaction before I noticed the sheer _peace_ of the man. No roiling emotion, just _calm_. I suddenly, desperately, wanted to learn how to do that. “Intelligent eyes. Good. Control. Better. You ought to have been presented to me years ago.”_ _

__Which meant that my mother had probably managed to convince my father to keep me away. I couldn’t see the sharp-edged man that had sired me having kept anything from this man. Still, absolutely nothing had been said that required me to respond, so I didn’t, just staring back at him. I may not know how close of a relation to me he was but I knew enough of this era to know that a Clan Head was the law. I didn’t want to antagonize him._ _

__“Yes, very intelligent eyes. I’m given to understand that the children have named you Hana-dono. It’s been some time since they’ve rallied around anyone inside the clan in such a fashion. Not since before your father was born, in fact.” He finally released my chin, though not my wrist, and I realized all at once that he was _reading_ me. The moment I realized that he _smiled_ , and it wasn’t a nice smile, made all the more unnerving in that it didn’t touch his emotions. “I’ll have to talk to your father.”_ _

__That... was bad. I didn’t know what made it so horrifying but I know, with absolute certainty that it was _bad_. Mother kept... many secrets from father, I knew that. I’d known that since I saw her play with seals the first time and realized that father thought she knew less about them than she did. And now, there was me. I had been her secret this time and it was coming back to her. Through father, through _this_ man. I said nothing at all, even at that, instead bowing my head to the man in understanding._ _

__He just patted me on my head once, that sense of satisfaction coming like a breeze before vanishing away into the man’s calm again, and finally released me. “Good child. Leave me.”_ _

__I met his eyes one last time, then backed away with a deep bow before leaving the building using the same measured pace he’d already seen from me. I would not run._ _

__Running brings a predator into a chase and I was having none of that._ _


	7. Winter

To say the fight my parents had about the change in my situation was spectacular was to imply that it was loud. It wasn’t. This fight had no yelling, no violence. 

No, the fight was icy silences and mother being removed from my presence or me from hers with increasing frequency. It was cold, and sharp, lingering like the depth of winter in the farthest reaches of a frozen desert. It was suffocating, and there was no escaping it because my mother’s anger, banked and choked down tightly, still overlaid every emotion she covered it up with when she’d touch me in any way. Father’s thwarted anger was worse, somehow, whispering of things I’d forgotten that I should be remembering and practically searing across my senses even as the man maintained a facade of emotionlessness.

During this time, being put outside to go interact with other children was a relief. When it dragged on for months, it was a mercy.

Being sporadically taken off to sit in silence with Sofu-dono for hours during this span of time was far less of either, and bouncing between the extremes of silence had me tempted to just stay _outside_. Sadly, the frost creeping over the land and the dust of snow that came and went was enough to keep most of the children busy enough that even my reprieves were becoming less and less. 

To say I was startled when one particularly cold day my mother wrapped a new scarf around me and told me she was glad I was growing up so strong before _knocking me out_ would be another caliber of understatement entirely. My mother had never once done anything to frighten me, nor had she ever harmed me in any way.

In some ways, this was perhaps a disservice, but she’d been equated to safety.

In his own way, I think my father was trying to take care of me, to protect me even, but on this particular day all my expectations were completely thrown into a spin. My mother, I found out upon waking, had decided she’d had enough of the demands of the Shimura and attempted to _steal me away_. I confess to being disoriented so much of the explanation flew right past me, but there was enough context that I understood that some specific training was about to begin for me because I’d turned four and that she wanted no part of it for me.

I might have been thankful if she hadn’t felt the need to give me a headache to get me to wherever we _were_. Or if she’d perhaps simply explained things to me in some way. She knew I was intelligent. She knew I paid attention when she told me things. Had she thought I was so enamored with the other children that I would fight her on going away? Had she thought that I was so attached to comfort that I couldn’t learn something else?

She might have. The months that followed weren’t good ones for me, and while she taught me a great deal about her seals in that time, taught me to handle a kunai well enough to stab any strangers who tried to grab me, how to hide my presence from anyone who might come by... Even with all these things, I wished she’d picked a different path. I didn’t know then why she turned desperate, but it was a brutal lesson for me.

Once, a lifetime ago, I’d cried and labored over a dog of mine, reviving her repeatedly as she succumbed to poison that a cruel teenager had fed her. I’d been several years older than my current physical age, but that had stuck with me for the rest of my last life, had been a turning point that had put me off of the field of medicine because I had the luxury of knowing that I had the choice of not facing that sort of death if I didn’t have to. 

I didn’t have that choice now and I could add a dead human being to the tally of things I’d seen in person. I’d watched my mother cut someone down, someone who as a person that had lived as many years as I did still looked like a _child_ , teenager or no, and she’d just left them there to choke on it, refusing to give them even a chance before slitting their throat. No questions, no hesitation, just brutal efficiency. I could also add being told that we weren’t to help to that list as we’d found someone else, already hurt, and mother hadn’t so much as slowed down to check on them, back straight and eyes forward even as I’d looked in the direction of the crying with wide eyes.

In my old life, I’d been called frightening more than once. I had an intimidating presence, a confidence that people responded to without thinking about it. People would hesitate to speak to me, for all that at heart, I only really had the best in mind for those around me. My mother... I’d thought she was like that, before. Not the outward sense of intimidation, but the good heart, the inner softness. I wasn’t sure that that assessment was wrong, not after the months of observation I had of her, but it was different now. Now she had the intimidation, and she frightened me. She still clearly loved me, wanted to keep me safe, but I didn’t _understand_.

I’d never known what to do with myself when I failed to understand something, and it seemed that this time would be no exception. Thus, I learned what she had to teach me with as much diligence as I could. I memorized and ate the plants she told me were safe, and I abided her rules about when and how to make fires as we made our way across the landscape.

I did everything I was supposed to, and then one day in spring, it was over.

My father was there.

It wasn’t a fight.

No, it was worse, somehow, than a fight. My father appeared in the darkness of the night and scooped me up, looking me over with a complete dearth of concern, a complete dearth of _anything_ , before setting me on my feet and gesturing me to silence. Something in his eyes told me that I would regret it if I didn’t obey even as something whispered to me that I would regret it if I did. 

So I chose the one that wouldn’t make him directly reprimand me and stood silent as he turned to my mother, pouncing on her and quieting her struggles without actually hurting her. 

I thought, mistakenly, that it would be fine, after that. That they’d resolve whatever this had been about and we’d all go back to the house among the Shimura and maybe the anger would finally be gone.

I was so very wrong. 

No, when father had subdued my mother it had been with careful hands, yes, but he’d repressed her chakra, had added weight to her clothes to drag at her, making her less than graceful when he got her up and moving. I didn’t understand this, at first, though I understood perfectly well that he wouldn’t let her touch me as he kept her at arms reach in front of him, steering her down toward the river by the moonlight.

I didn’t comprehend what I was seeing at first when he pushed her in and she simply _sank_. 

The jarring silence of the situation made no sense to me because I knew mother knew how to walk on water, and I’d seen her do it more than once. She hadn’t said a thing, had only looked at me with apology in her eyes and had just... gone where he’d pushed her. For the first several seconds I truly, honestly, expected her to come back to the surface. I expected her, soaking and apologetic and furious all at once to come swimming back to where I could see her.

And she didn’t. 

I, being horrified and angry and suddenly, viscerally _hurt_ , tried to lunge for the water, to try to help her, to _do_ something when I realized she wasn’t coming up on her own, and father didn’t let me. 

No, father held me like I was simply a little boy having a tantrum that needed to be weathered and spoke with low, steady certainty that made me remember, suddenly, some of the things that the man I had replaced had once done, in a future that I didn’t want to have for myself. I also, suddenly, understood what mother was running from when she absconded with me on my birthday. 

“There will be no more tears after this, Danzo. Enough.”

It was the only thing he said that night, but I still knew better than to argue. 

Father had never abided backtalk and mother was, clearly, no longer in a position to shield me if I tried.


	8. The Empty Year

I missed my mother. It was a strange thought, and the me of my last life found the concept strange. I’d never missed my mother before. In my last life, she’d had very little to do with me, and in this one... In this one I’d never had _cause_. She’d been there, a pillar of emotion and trust and _presence_ that I’d been able to lean into like a small flame pulled to one larger, protected and pushed along to be able to do more. It was strange, for that to suddenly be _gone_.

But then, I had my father. Again different, but also oddly similar. This man was not the loving artist of my last life, but the distance wasn’t unfamiliar. The push for me to be independent and rely on myself was not new, and something about that made hysterical bubbles rise in my throat to threaten giggles every time I thought about it too long. After all, I knew perfectly well that my father in my last life had watched someone burn to death as a teenager, and that was simply the story he _told_ me. What had he done that I’d never known? He’d been navy, after all. So yes, the unfiltered exposure to _this_ man was... Was familiar in its way, the hard edges without any softness but in essence similar in ways I couldn’t properly explain.

I rather hated that.

I wanted my two lives to stay separate. I wanted my last life to be private and mine and no one else’s, with all its soft edges and quiet disasters, not blended into _this_ life. I didn’t want to see any similarity in the man who killed the mother I loved and the man who was broken somewhere inside _long_ before I was born in the last. I didn’t want to understand _people_ the way this life was insisting I should. It wanted me to close the distance and know things, understand things that I’d willfully ignored when I’d been an adult because I had the _leisure to_.

Sofu-dono, of course, wouldn’t be having any of that. He didn’t know what I was, or wasn’t, doing, but he did know any time I didn’t do my best when he was teaching me, when I wasn’t observing to my fullest. He asked me questions. He pressed me to cage my emotion and frankly, I had no desire to. In my last life...

Well, it wasn’t my last life anymore, but the skills I learned then weren’t going to leave me just because I learned new. Yes, I’d forgotten the name I’d once carried, but I remember what it was to be a woman, to raise a child who shared no blood with me, and how to navigate living with people who only wanted me there because I’d found a niche that they needed filled and they didn’t want to do without. All of those lessons were useful here. Yes, it wouldn’t be until I was older that my experience as a female would probably _truly_ shine, but I knew how to navigate being spoken down to, dismissed, and generally ignored except when I was useful. 

They were all woefully familiar. 

Apparently, being a four-year-old little boy among the Shimura was not unlike being a younger woman in a relationship of convenience. 

How depressing. 

Still, it was useful in its way. Even if I didn’t want to grow and change, to be the person I’d once had a meltdown over the notion that I was similar to, apparently that was just how it was going to be. I knew I could be ruthless. I knew I could ignore the woes of others, and I knew I could use honesty as a brutal weapon. I once was, and still remain, an opportunist. I was not above handouts, and charity was simply gifts with ulterior motives. I understood this, and I have no pride that means I will not accept whatever it is people deign to give me.

For months, that gift was in the form of brutal combat and emotional training, but that was fine. I knew _how_ to put my emotions away already. I just had to retouch those teenage lessons, remember how to present the facade that people _wanted_. I’d learned too well to be honest before this life, but I’d been here well over a year now and Sofu-dono would expect nothing less than my absolute excellence. He could _tell_ when my emotions were too present, too unprotected, and he ruthlessly pressed me every time he found me at such a point. 

Still, somehow, this was all better than the acidic ice of the cold that had been the fighting before mother ran with me. It felt like a betrayal to her to think so but... this was easier. There were no emotions for me to fight my way through outside myself anymore. There was no tug of war. The children were still a reprieve, but one I got less often now, between the training with the man who was the clan head and my father. It remained an area of simplicity even as the children started to vanish out of the family holdings one by one come summer, their homes standing empty and their lives packed away as though they’d never been at all.

In fact, by the time autumn came to the Shimura lands, I was the only child who remained, wandering the disturbingly deserted lands and peeking into houses that had been cleared with worrying efficiency. Yet still, there were adults around, my father among them, and my lessons with Sofu-dono simply picked up their pace, going slowly from once a week, to twice, until there wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t spend more time with the man than with anyone else.

Come winter, even that changed, and my father _left_ , placing a flute and scroll in my hands before escorting me to Sofu-dono’s home with nary a word. I knew the purpose of the flute, of course. In one of those eerie similarities to the father of my last life he’d insisted I choose some kind of art, and in a moment of nostalgic flippancy, I said the flute. I’d had a bit of a touch with the one I’d handled as a child in my last life, but I’d never learned the skill. Apparently, he’d taken me seriously enough to gift me the instrument. 

Somehow, I couldn’t find any relief in me to know that my father was gone. Yes, I was still angry with him, but he was also familiar. He was the first person I’d ever seen in this life and the importance of that was not to be undervalued. He was, in some way, still _mine_ , and I’d never quite shaken my possessive tendencies. I could share, I was excellent at giving, but I collected people the same way others collected trinkets and the comfort of knowing where my people were had always been part of me. 

And that had, over the last months, somehow slipped through my fingers. First mother, then the Shimura children whose names I never knew, and now even my father had abandoned me.

Yes, he might still return but...

Sofu-dono was going to have no bounds at all, now. 

I wasn’t surprised to find myself correct in that, of course, and I only had enough time to tuck the gifts left to me in the room I was shown to before Sofu-dono demanded my presence. It wasn’t a lesson on emotional control he greeted me with, this time. No, it was a quiet, insistent demand. I was to show him the seals my mother had taught me. I was to show him how good my calligraphy was, and I was going to be truthful about both things or I would know the sharp edge of his displeasure.

I didn’t want to share, of course. Mother’s seals had always been a private treasure, and even father didn’t know I could properly _read_. One glance at Sofu-dono’s face, however, had more than urged me to comply, and I put thoughts of such rebellion straight out of my head. I knew when a fight would go poorly for me, and this happened to be one of those times.

Unfortunately.


End file.
